WOUNDED SEPOYS

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2230, 14 October 1898, Page 4

WOUNDED SEPOYS

F-oin Tin- lield hospitals that have ministev.-d tn iht sick ;Tn>\ wounded in the late campaigns on the North West Frontier of India is now emerging a little stream of wounded sepoys for whom medical skill has done what it can. hut who have been too badly injured to resume their places in the ranks. They ere men who have gallanlly performed thr-ir duty, and have hen maimed tor life in doing it. on th" Held of bottle, in defence of the British Raj. All told, there are probably about live hundred of them, who -.m- now wending their weary way hack to their villages. They are fighting m.-r,. and In the great majority of casss, especially among the Sikhs, are too proud to ask for favors ov to make successful endeavor to obtain olier work, even when not too much injured to .-io so. They have nothing to look forward to, therefore, ie.it their wound pensions, which alone stand between 'hem and their wives and children and. starvation. For the honor of the British name, il obviously behoves us that these pensions shall be sufficient. Yet this apparently is not (he case. The following is what a responsible Fritish officer, belonging to one of the regiments which saw out the stifiVst of the recent fighting', writes. It was not intended for publication, but it puts the case so clearly that T may be pardoned for quoting it: "About ; he and several others of the wounded were very discontented about the amounts of pension they will <ret. and their individual eases, no doubt, s; em very hard, At the panic time, 1 don't see what can be done for them as regards increasing their pensions, as the ruling-on the subject is most clear and explicit. T enclose an extract from the paragraph from Army Regulations. Vol. 1., pt. 2. dealing with the subject, from which you will see see that he is entitled to ii rupees per mensem Che is under fifteen years' service), and I hardly see how 1 can agitate for more. They would only refer me to the paragraph. I have been put in a very unpleasant position by those men objecting to their pensions. . . . All the board of medical officers does is to describe the wounds, etc.. to settle which 'degree' it comes under. Having lost one limb, his is the second. . . .

I think ir. wouldn't a bad thins if ;< ! the time <>t enlistment the rates of wound pension were read out to recruits. They would not. be. able to say then that they were unfairly treated, which I am afraid these men think they are." This is a plain statement of actual cases which have recently come t.i notice, and il is no whir, exaggerated. A .figliting-man who has lost an arm or a leg in action, thereby incapacitating him from Liu.- exercise of his trade, which is that of war. surely deserves to ),<■ better treated than he who is permitted in retire on the plea of ill health, ifet what do we find? A sepoy, or lance naik, of. say. fourteen years' service who is invalid".-! may r ceive up to four rupees a month pension, while a man of the some length of service and standing,who loses a leg or an arm in the field, only sets five.. His prospects of rising to be a naik or a havildar, which every sepoy can look forward to, have been suddenly

cut short, oncl he returns to his people on what ■ xperiencc shows is too often insufficient to maintain him raid his family in Ihe position they have always been accustomed to iu their village,.-md rather than abandon which they would starve.The sepoy's pay has re?, ntly been raised by two rupees a month, but so long is ir since any other large number of men have been wotiuded in action that the wound pension has been for--gott n. and still rein.--.ins a! its old figure, a wound d man not even g- ling the com ■ i•- ■n.--i t ;•■;-! for deiim ss if provisions which is paid to men in the regiment, whenev >r a crop OtUn and prices in cons "4Ueii(;< go im. licononiists will tell y m that a man ,-*]."! tiis family can live upon live rupees :■ month in this country. This is true ' notigh. Hut the slow process of starvation winch such living means is not all that is necessary in this ease. It must be remembered, too, that throughout the !< atrtii Pnd bt'Knith of the villages from which these men come the wounded are looked upon in a totally different light from those incapacitated by disease, and more liberality of treatment is expected for them. To nut the matter rftrht, and raise the wounded sepoy to a position in which he will not need to fear want, : s r>. thing so small in the nuttier of cost as to be almost ridiculous, when the importance of the issue is considered. For the complication which exists in ihe ease of the Balaclava veteran who finds his way into Urn workhouse hardly •■•xists in that of the sepoy, who is. as a rule, both temperate and provident. An i have already pointed out, only akout five hundred wounded arc coEcrm-d, and to give this number an average of say, ten rupee? a month, : :i>3 of live, as .'m. present, would mean a total outlay of little ov-r half a lakh of mixes a year —surds :i email price to pay to remove tic repp>a'\ : ! that now pa«s_-rf from mouth ti> mouth ia iie- of Truiia. and r-i approval ly increase the ponularity if servie • in tie- native army. 1: is not the serf of thing in which one could be imnosed upon. f'ir thi '•■■> can be a > shamming in the case of a man shot d'.w n ia :;cti ot. and tli • often.;: 1 that •..x----o -"..lliurt; i: ; incurred under \'. the more ni "•■s.--iry decs it obviously b-vome. Wo all hope it may bo many year- before fhe arm;, - of India., is called upon for an■•t?i r campaign "f the kind it has Just. U.-.--:i through. Tint one eonnot on that ;i ■<• .unt shut one's eyes to the fact that similar • v ets may at any time lea i to shniUir results. And wh-'m men ■!>•>' liable to h- e.vU-d upon to risk life a id ijinb ,a rntioo. r is hut rlsrnt that they . liiiui ■ h.-.e.v that nt uep.vtmental v \;-'\ ~ »i-b»m Will In- ricrmitt.-d to imr-r- ---:".••■. v , ;th ;':• sufficieiwy of the. provision ? ;:•,!. I'.jr ihos- who fall. M-anw'nile. •vhon tie- cattle come home at night and th s'O ,1 1 'f cooking rise.- with the dusi '■■> the vi'l.ig-- :••"•■-r. it. shall not be said r.i'it the ii-arth of th- -1 wounded who fi'isrlit 'or '.i: ' -wear alone is col.), or

"!■'• the •' she. l has forgotten the men who '■'•■ 1 fccsjjr* him in a quarrel that was far more i:!.- than th'-'irs.—"Pall "Mali Hazctt-V